A Potent Dose of Hope
January 24th 2009 00:30
As we experience all our ups and downs of the years past, one may find it best complemented with reading material that doesn't ask for too much emotional depth. In fact, for escapism purposes, it may be alot simpler to just go to the cinema at the end of the week rather than read a book that puts the heartstrings into a more sombre tone.
Year of Wonders, by Australian author Geraldine Brooks, is the type of novel that doesn't especially require full attention yet at the same time has moments that 'rock the boat,' in a 1600's puritanical sense. It makes sense for the main character - who is as stated fact one of many in the story who went through the traumas of living in a plague stricken village in countryside England - to provide the inspiration that is the writing of what turned out to be an Australian bestselling novel.
In such a case, it becomes common to witness members of the village drop off like flies. As the enforced isolation of the place comes into play it becomes clear that the experience of reading this novel is something that could never relate to the day-to-day running of things that is civilisation as we know it.
It is a day to day commentary of a time almost forgotten, indeed never heard of in post-colonial Terra Nulius, but as with all tragedies there will be scars to be found. But our author does not look to the present for her inspiration, indeed we are delved - although not altogether transported - into a desperate time when the doctors, unlike today, had no means for curing such a disease.
So herb gardens are taken very seriously, superstition is commonplace and the locals of the village can be very barbaric when issues of justice are to be attended to. It isn't a pretty sight, yet there manages to be many moments of what can seem like miracles for people with such little hope for the future.
Our main character, who takes position of narrator throughout the novel, manages to live up to the title of the book as the plague year passes and she comes to realise and live out her full, quite near maximum, potential. Indeed this is the type of novel whose woes are made up for thrice fold when the main character displays a more vivid picture of the outside world after the need for isolation is no longer.
Year of Wonders has a fair whack of dark emotional pull, yet I would say its main aim is to describe the wonder of pulling through such a dire situation into better days. For this fact, it is well worth the read.
Year of Wonders, by Australian author Geraldine Brooks, is the type of novel that doesn't especially require full attention yet at the same time has moments that 'rock the boat,' in a 1600's puritanical sense. It makes sense for the main character - who is as stated fact one of many in the story who went through the traumas of living in a plague stricken village in countryside England - to provide the inspiration that is the writing of what turned out to be an Australian bestselling novel.
In such a case, it becomes common to witness members of the village drop off like flies. As the enforced isolation of the place comes into play it becomes clear that the experience of reading this novel is something that could never relate to the day-to-day running of things that is civilisation as we know it.
It is a day to day commentary of a time almost forgotten, indeed never heard of in post-colonial Terra Nulius, but as with all tragedies there will be scars to be found. But our author does not look to the present for her inspiration, indeed we are delved - although not altogether transported - into a desperate time when the doctors, unlike today, had no means for curing such a disease.
So herb gardens are taken very seriously, superstition is commonplace and the locals of the village can be very barbaric when issues of justice are to be attended to. It isn't a pretty sight, yet there manages to be many moments of what can seem like miracles for people with such little hope for the future.
Our main character, who takes position of narrator throughout the novel, manages to live up to the title of the book as the plague year passes and she comes to realise and live out her full, quite near maximum, potential. Indeed this is the type of novel whose woes are made up for thrice fold when the main character displays a more vivid picture of the outside world after the need for isolation is no longer.
Year of Wonders has a fair whack of dark emotional pull, yet I would say its main aim is to describe the wonder of pulling through such a dire situation into better days. For this fact, it is well worth the read.
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